Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [150]
The children dropped their reading pads and dived into the thick fronds. The priests scrambled into the branches, like swimmers submerging themselves in the waves of an alien sea. Celli remained where she was, still looking for the danger, her foolish curiosity stronger than her fear.
The wyvern struck.
The largest predator on Theroc careened down in a flurry of jagged wings, faceted eyes, and multiple mandibles. Its giant body was tapered in a long wasplike shape, covered with camouflage blotches, the wings were bursts of scarlet and orange. All eight of its legs were tipped with serrated claws to grasp and tear.
The wyvern came directly toward Celli. She didn't scream, nor did she freeze in terror. Instead, with her muscular legs, she leapt from the frond on which she sat and arced downward, catching a branch and swinging herself around. The wyvern streaked past, its claws slashing at the foliage. But Celli had already let go and dropped to a different branch, landing with her bare feet and springing up against the resilient wood to fly in another direction. This was like treedancing, and she could do it all day.
The wyvern came close again, its wings buzzing, clashing its mandibles like a hungry man licking his lips. Something long and sharp whipped by, barely missing the skin on her shoulder. A stinger! The wyvern had some kind of paralysing venom that could freeze its prey, but Celli squirmed out of the way, grabbed another branch, and continued bounding along even as the wyvern pursued her, ripping worldtree fronds. Her heart pounded. The breath burned in her lungs.
Suddenly, a different kind of buzzing passed close to her ear, and she saw Solimar's gliderbike streak in front of the wyvern. He didn't call to her, and Celli could tell he was trying to divert it. Their first meeting had been when Solimar rescued her from the burning worldtrees. Now he was rescuing her again.
While she ducked into a dense clump of fronds, the wyvern took off after Solimar. His gliderbike dipped and swooped, dwarfed by the enormous predator. He hunched over, trying to make himself a smaller target.
She didn't shout, afraid she would distract him at a very bad moment. Instead, she pushed her head above the branches and watched as he plummeted and swirled, dived and then climbed. Though his vehicle was nimble, the wyvern was in its own element. Celli's stomach knotted. Solimar couldn't escape from the creature forever.
Her friend seemed to understand that as well, and when the wyvern nearly clipped his arm with a sharp wing, Solimar spun the gliderbike around and drove directly toward the creature, using the vehicle itself as a projectile.
The multiple wings of the flying predator backed in the air, causing it to change course, but Solimar drove onward, faster, closer. Celli caught her breath. At the last moment before impact, Solimar gracefully sprang from his gliderbike, fell through open air, and plunged into the canopy.
His treasured gliderbike crashed into the wyvern at great speed, smashing one of the creature's wings, cracking its armoured abdomen. She did not worry about Solimar's fall, since he was an expert treedancer like herself. In a graceful move, he caught one of the uprising clumps of fronds to slow his momentum. Then he grabbed a solid branch, twirled around, and flung himself off, catching his balance on yet another bough.
The ruined gliderbike tumbled out of the sky, while the injured wyvern flapped drunkenly away.
Celli was already bounding across the thick branches to where she had seen Solimar land. When she caught up with him, he was breathing hard and his smooth green skin was cross-hatched with minor wounds, but there were no serious injuries. She flung herself into his arms. ‘Thank you, Solimar!' Then she pulled back, looked into his face, and raised her voice. ‘What were you doing? You could have been killed.'
‘You, too! And I wanted both of us to stay alive.'
Sheltered under the top layer of fronds, they held each other for a long moment. Then she kissed him.
Ninety-four
Jess Tamblyn
Just